Desmond Chute, 1895–1962

Abstract

New BlackfriarsVolume 44, Issue 511 p. 27-36 Desmond Chute, 1895–1962 WALTER SHEWRING, WALTER SHEWRINGSearch for more papers by this author WALTER SHEWRING, WALTER SHEWRINGSearch for more papers by this author First published: January 1963 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-2005.1963.tb00882.x Maurice Collis, Stanley Spencer (1962), pp. 49–51, 67–68. Dates are confused; in 1916 Desmond was twenty. p. 209. Cf Eric Gill, Letters (1947), p. 448. Whether this was a good thing or bad thing I can't decide - so often, in our perverted age, technique is the enemy of art; the Slade provided technique. Desmond relished afterwards the possible applications of Mother Julian's sentence: ‘And anon he falleth into a slade, and taketh full great sore’. As he wrote himself: ‘To anyone who has learnt a craft in a workshop, the elaborate expertise whose aim is to spot the master's hand, isolating his work from that of the school, is simply laughable. The touches of the master are as fleeting as they are frequent, whereas the imprint of his mind is everywhere, and not least in what he has least touched’. Eric Gill, Letters, pp. 148, 153, 163, 175. Time and circumstance have not been kind to these Stations. His best portraits are pure line-drawings and are psychologically convincing. Sometimes he added colour; sometimes he used a landscape background. Eric Gill's Letters have at p. 214 a portrait of E.G. by D.C. (distinct from that in the Nationd Portrait Gallery), and at p. 346 one of D.C. by E.G. From their earliest acquaintance Desmond was conscious of the greater gifts of this friend, and he lived long enough to be enthralled by the Anathemata. I am glad to see, as I write this memoir, that some of my judgments have been anticipated by Mr Jones (letter to The Tablet, 20 October, 1962). The Game Vol. II, no. 3 (1918), p. 55. In Vol. IV no. 4 (1921), p. 50, is the other roundel, from Charles d'Orléans: The year hath cast his cloak away. A recorded talk of his about Yeats and Pound was broadcast on Christmas Eve, 1955 and was printed in The Listener, 5 January, 1956, with reproductions of his own portraits of both poets. One of these, a Tuscan who had married a Genoese, replied to his condolences: ‘Yes, he was a very good husband, a wonderful husband; but - would you believe it, Father? - till his dying day the poor man could never hear the difference between tórta and tórta’. He helped to found this Apostleship at Genoa and did much work on an Italian prayer-book for sailors of which he presented a copy to Pius XI. The audience was to have been of five minutes, but the Pope stayed for half an hour, asking questions about the Apostleship and listening intently to the answers; Desmond's mother kneeled beside in ecstasy. After the war, he rebuilt at his own expense in the main church of Rapallo the Chapel of the Redeemer destroyed by his countrymen, adding a memorial to a priest friend who had then been killed in the confessional (inter remittenda peccata animam pro ovibus posuit). The donor, says the inscription, was Desmundus Macready Chute, sacerdos, Anglicus natione. Two further words may be supplied from Dante's tenth letter. Two chapters of this were published in the Downside Review of 1949 (nos. 208 and 209). Bibliography. Obituary of E.G. in Osservatore Romano, 28 February, 1942. Italian translation of Social Justice and the Stations of the Cross printed in battered unauthorised form in Humanitas, Brescia, March 1951. Blackfriars, December 1950 and January 1951 (Eric Gill: A Retrospect and Eric Gill and the MoneyChangers). Catholic Art Quarterly, U.S.A.: Thomist Aesthetics (Pentecost 1949); Eric Gill (Christmas 1953); Sacred, Holy or Religious Art (Michaelmas 1954) AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Volume44, Issue511January 1963Pages 27-36 RelatedInformation